samsung HD103UJ possible short circuit

[Prickles]

Hi all, my 1tb drive has stopped working. It does nothing. I had another smaller drive in the case with it and when I pulled the pc out to see why the graphics had given up, I think the smaller drive may have touched the circuit board of the tb drive and killed it. Does anyone know how I can test which part of the pcb is causing the problem.
Many thanks,
Paul

[Vulcan]

If your guess is correct about you shorting the top of one drive, against the PCB on the bottom of your 1TB drive, then you may be wasting time trying to fix the affected PCB - you don't know how many components are damaged

If I was in the situation you describe, I would be investigating replacing that PCB instead, if I was happy taking the risks of DIY repair attempts (or using a professional DR company, if speed / confidence in the repair / value of the data etc., is a factor for you).

If anyone is going to spend time assisting you to investigate your current PCB (despite the problem I explained above), it may help if you supply a close-up, good quality photo of the PCB, component side up. However I'm not promising that anyone will think it is worthwhile spending time trying to fix that original PCB.

[Prickles]

Thanks Vulcan,
I will try and get a picture tomorrow in daylight but I have had a look and see no signs of damage.
Had looked into getting a replacement board but the price of one seems not to different from that of a complete drive.
Also I did read somewhere that it is not always possible to replace a pcb with success as the chips in them have a memory of sort that knows where data is, or something like that.

Thanks for your views.

[Vulcan]

Also I did read somewhere that it is not always possible to replace a pcb with success as the chips in them have a memory of sort that knows where data is, or something like that.

Correct, it's usually not just a straight swap of the PCBs - if you read some of the previous postings, you'll see the type of work which is discussed.

If you prefer to wait and see if someone will talk you through troubleshooting your PCB, assuming you're accepting the risks of DIY, then posting that photo is the next step, IMHO.

[BlackST]

It's a total waste of time to try to repair the PCB.

[fzabkar]

I will try and get a picture tomorrow in daylight ...

A scan is sometimes better.

For example, the following image was scanned at 1200dpi on a Canon MFC:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/Di ... B_comp.JPG (2.1MB)

[Prickles]

Ok here is a scan of my pcb.

Attachments

new.tif (2.98 MiB) Viewed 5760 times

[fzabkar]

Apparently not all scanners are created equal.

Sorry, but I can't make out anything.

[Prickles]

yeah my scan was nowhere near as clear as yours. Did scan at 1200dpi but then the pic was 50mb. this is scanned at 300dpi i think. was not much difference between the 2 anyway.
If I can get a better scan then I will post it here.
Thanks anyway.